Fragments of Noir

Saturday, 18 April 2026

His Rope

Eddie Coyle is a small-time loser at the end of his rope, but the marvelous thing about Mitchum is that he doesn't play him as a groveling, uncourageous man. He imparts to the role a quiet dignity the character in the book lacked. I think Mitchum radiates a genuine presence. Above all, you can say about Mitchum that he is.

excerpt from
Robert Mitchum : The Last Celluloid Desperado
Grover Lewis
Rolling Stone - 1973

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Friends of Eddie Coyle
Peter Yates
1973

Lost Life

Lost Life
(Pepper)
Art Pepper

Friday, 17 April 2026

A State of Affairs

Chinatown connotes color and in a larger sense the hidden twoness of things. It is both a place and a state of affairs, part of Los Angeles and Los Angeles itself. At the end, we learn that Noah Cross "owns the police", that the cover-up Gittes detested in Chinatown extends all over. To paraphrase Marlowe's Mephistopheles ; Why this is Chinatown, nor am i out of it.

except from
Norman Holland
A Sharper Focus

Self Portrait #33

Phillipe Halsman

Rene Groebli

Leon Herschritt

Angelo Rizzuto

Dennis Hopper

Nacho Lopez

Saul Leiter

Lee Miller

Vivian Maier

Herbert List

Thursday, 16 April 2026

Downpour of Shadows #32

Un Flic

Gun Crazy

The Verdict (1982)

Underworld USA

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Three Days of the Condor

Veronika Voss

Deadly Affair

Among the Living

Angel Heart

Carol

Bitter Stems

End of the Affair

Une si Jolie Petite Plage

Le Samourai

Lies Had Deserted

Lies had deserted me and i felt as lonely as though they had been my only friends.

Graham Greene

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Tim Shorten

Wednesday, 15 April 2026

On Noir Set #54

LA Confidential

Force of Evil

Bullitt

Clash By Night

Eastern Promises

Hitch - Hiker

Chinatown

End of the Affair (1955)

Zodiac

Touch of Evil

Scarlet Street

Raging Bull

Se7en

Quai Des Orfevres

Killers Kiss

Call It a Night

Tuesday, 14 April 2026

Gaze That Dominates

On one level, Vertigo is a clever story about the factuality of the unrelenting male gaze that dominates and dictates both our shared collective mentality and the reality and the majority of the narratives we as a species create and willingly consume, but it should also be viewed as a clever deconstruction of it.

Koraljka Suton
Cinephiliabeyond.org

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Sean Phillips

https://cinephiliabeyond.org/vertigo/